The Texas Department of Agriculture recently awarded millions in grants to schools to help them put more local foods on students’ lunch trays.
Grant recipients are required to use the money to buy foods produced in Texas, including fruits, vegetables, pasta, rice, beans, meat, and dairy products. The money may not be used to purchase baked goods, chicken nuggets, fish sticks, pre-made pizzas, or foods that are processed, pre-packaged, or ready-to-eat.
Texas Department of Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller told The Epoch Times that he introduced the Farm Fresh program in 2015 in response to a Central Texas school district superintendent who wanted to promote meatless Mondays.
“So, I thought, we’ve got to counter that,” Mr. Miller said during an interview. “That’s when I came up with Farm Fresh Friday.”
Initially, the idea was to encourage schools to serve at least one local product on Fridays and educate children on where food comes from.
“And for that local product, bring that farmer in and have ‘Meet the Farmer Friday,’” he continued. “It started slow, and we’ve grown it.”
The program is beneficial for the farmer, the district, and especially the children who are eating fresher meals and learning where food comes from.
Connecting schools with local farmers was a challenge before the Texas Department of Agriculture stepped in to assist.
School districts typically purchase food from institutional food service providers who can provide all the items needed for school meals. Many local producers often sell one food item, or their products may rotate based on the season.
Coppell Independent School District (CISD) in Coppell, Texas, has participated in the Farm Fresh program from the beginning, Eric Lozano, CISD’s director of child nutrition, told The Epoch Times. Coppell is a suburban community about 25 miles northwest of Dallas.
Mr. Lozano said the Farm Fresh program has been instrumental in coordinating the contracts between the districts and local producers. The program gives districts a “certain amount of dollars” that can be used to buy from the contracted farmers and ranchers.
“For example, at the beginning of the year, we brought in [local] watermelon, apples, and pears,” Mr. Lozano said. “I believe our next delivery is going to have more apples, [plus] oranges and grapefruits.”
Diego Diverde, director of sales at Greener Pastures Chicken, told The Epoch Times that federal laws are set up in a way that “makes it hard for schools to actually procure local food.” Greener Pastures Chicken sits on 60 acres in Elgin, Texas, about 25 miles northeast of Austin.
Mr. Diverde said he had been working with an organization in Austin that helps connect farmers and businesses, and it was there that he met others involved in the Farm Fresh program. After learning about the school program, Greener Pastures Chicken signed up as a producer for the Farm Fresh network.
“It’s been awesome,” Mr. Diverde said. “We’ve been able to work with a few school districts.”
He said the chicken they produce is USDA Regenerative Organic Certified, a new certification that prioritizes soil health and animal welfare, adding that they are the only poultry farm in the country with the certification.
Mr. Diverde said his farm’s practices support the “natural behavior of a chicken to the very highest standards and levels,” which he explained creates better-tasting chicken with a different texture than mass-produced poultry.
‘Actual Food’
Mr. Lozano said the Farm Fresh program was so well received by students and parents in the community that several years ago, the district took it a step further and began building gardens at each of its campuses. Now, all but one of its 17 schools has its own garden.They also hired gardening teachers and a master gardener to oversee the program.
The students get to prepare the ground, plant the seeds, and tend the gardens until it’s time for harvest. The master gardener works with the district’s dietician to let them know what foods will be available from the gardens so they incorporate them into the school meals or special events.
“They can see with their own eyes that they’re growing actual food that’s being consumed in our kitchen. That’s where food comes from. It doesn’t come from the drive-thru or the grocery stores,” Mr. Lozano explained.
He said he hopes the school gardens will encourage a new generation of farmers to take the reigns as the number of farmers across the state and country dwindles.
High Costs Push Farmers Out of Business
Texas tops the nation with more than 248,000 farms and ranches covering 127 million acres, according to the Texas Department of Agriculture.However, farm sizes are shrinking, and the average age of the state’s farmers and ranchers is 59, which means many are nearing retirement.
With fewer children taking over the family farming businesses and more children living in urban areas, many wonder what the future of the industry will look like in the coming decades.
“The biggest thing that I’ve seen ... is just the amount of rural land that we lose every day to urban sprawl,” Jeff Chaffin, ranch manager at W4 Ranch, told The Epoch Times. W4 is a third-generation ranch that produces Hereford cattle in Morgan, Texas, about 65 miles south of Fort Worth.
He said government regulations on farmers and ranchers are making it more difficult and more expensive to produce the food needed to keep up with the demands of the growing population in Texas, the nation, and across the world.
“What I don’t understand is, if we don’t use some of these technologies that everybody is so against, how we’re going to feed the numbers,” Mr. Chaffin continued. “Urban sprawl is pushing land prices so high, you can’t buy it for agriculture.”
The growing expense in agriculture makes it difficult for small family farms to continue working the land.
Marte Mitchell, a cattle rancher in Sunset, Texas, told The Epoch Times that he used to farm about 4,000 acres of sunflowers, corn, sorghum, and soybeans but stopped because it’s difficult to make a living as a small farmer. Sunset is about 60 miles northwest of Fort Worth.
He explained that farmers often sell their crops for a contracted price ahead of delivery. If the price per bushel goes up when it comes time for delivery, the farmer still gets the price they agreed upon in the contract.
“In March, if you sold 20,000 bushels of corn for $2 [a bushel] and then in December corn went up to $5 a bushel, it won’t matter because you sold yours for $2,” Mr. Mitchell explained. “Then, the [grain] elevator takes it, and they sell it for $5.”
He said that the bigger the farm, the lower the cost for volume, which leads to big corporations taking over food production.
“They work by volume, and they just keep getting bigger, bigger, and bigger,” Mr. Mitchell said.
